February 17, 2026 • 17 mins
Do you ever feel frustrated that your life isn’t moving the way you want it to?
What if the problem isn’t a lack of motivation—but a misalignment between what you want and what you’re investing in?
And what if the reason things haven’t changed yet has more to do with safety, identity, and belief than effort?
In this episode of A Really Good Cry, Radhi opens up an honest, grounding conversation about why the life you want might still feel out of reach—and how your time, energy, beliefs, and nervous system are quietly shaping your reality. From the difference between fantasizing and truly investing, to the way identity, fear, and old patterns can hold you back, this episode is an invitation to look at your life with curiosity instead of judgment.
Rather than pushing you to “try harder” or think more positively, Radhi explores how real change happens when your actions, beliefs, and sense of self begin to align—and why sometimes the thing blocking your growth isn’t laziness, but protection.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- Why your life reflects what you’re funding, not what you’re wishing for
- How misalignment between words and actions keeps you stuck
- What “identity lag” is and why growth can feel uncomfortable even when you’re doing everything right
- Why your nervous system may not feel safe receiving what you want yet
- How belief, optimism, and small shifts in action can gently change your direction
This isn’t about blaming yourself or overhauling your life overnight—it’s about awareness, honesty, and making space for alignment. Sometimes the shift you’re waiting for doesn’t come from doing more, but from seeing clearly where you already are—and choosing one small change in the right direction.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You can't say you want peace but invest your energy
into chaos. You can't say that you want health but
then ignore your body. You can't say that you want
growth but avoid discomfort. And you can't say you want
freedom but then you never say no. That's why, if
you think about it, when things are free, there's actually
been studies on this, they are most less likely to
attend and less likely to take it seriously because nothing
is being spent, nothing is being committed to. I'm rather
(00:22):
WKAH and on my podcast A Really Good Cry, we
embrace the messy and the beautiful, providing a space for raw,
unfiltered conversations that celebrate vulnerability and allow you to tune
in to learn, connect and find comfort together. Hey everyone,
welcome back to this week's episode of A Really Good Cry.
I hope you're healthy and happy, and I hope you're
doing all the things that you want to in life.
(00:43):
But I'm assuming that if you have a click on
this episode, you might be feeling a little bit frustrated
that your life just doesn't look the way you want
it to yet, And if you're finding yourself stuck in
this loop of why is this not happening for me?
Or you might even be blaming other people, blaming your
circumstance or your timing for why your life just isn't
where you want it to be.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
And I totally get it.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Because when things are not moving, the mind ends up
looking for something or someone to point at, whether it's
the family that you came from, the relationship that hurt you,
the job that drained you, or even the version of
yourself that didn't show up when you really needed her to.
But you know what, I really don't believe that people
are unlucky. I think that sometimes we can be misaligned
(01:26):
between what we say we want and what we invest in,
and what we subconsciously believe that we're allowed to have.
So if you're listening to this from a place of
frustration or confusion or resentment, this is not going to
be an episode telling you to try harder or to
think more positively. It's actually just going to be an
invitation for you to look, honestly, without judgment, at where
(01:47):
your life is pointing you and how you might be
able to gently redirect it in the direction that you
want to go. Let's start by talking about this investment.
It's not just money when it comes to investment. It's
your time, it's your energy, what you're funding versus what
you're fantasizing about. And the thing is, every single outcome
has a cost, and it's not always financial, but something
always has to be spent, whether it's time, whether it's money,
(02:10):
whether it's energy, attention, or emotional bandwidth. The uncomfortable truth
is this, if something isn't happening, it might be something
that you're not properly investing in. And that doesn't make
you lazy or unworthy. It just means that your resources
are not currently going to the place that they should be.
They're focused somewhere else. Your life already shows you where
your priorities are, not through what you say, but what
(02:30):
you consistently fund. The brain assigns value through resource allocation,
so whatever you give your time, your money, and your
emotional energy to it becomes what your nervous system believes
is important and safe. That means even procrastination is an investment.
You're investing in familiarity and comfort. One of the mistakes
we make is that we think motivation comes before investment,
(02:51):
but it's usually the opposite. Motivation comes after you've actually
done the investment. Action is what creates clarity, not the
other way around. So if you're waiting, if you're ready,
before you choose to invest your precious time or energy
into something, you're waiting for the wrong signal. So this
is a good place to ask yourself, where does my
time actually go? What do I spend money on without hesitation,
(03:12):
what drains my energy? And what do I consistently avoid?
Because wanting something in theory is not the same as
paying for it in real life. You can't say you
want peace but invest energy into chaos. You can't say
that you want health but then ignore your body. You
can't say that you want growth but avoid discomfort. And
you can't say you want freedom but then you never
say no. That's why, if you think about it, when
(03:33):
things are free, there's actually been studies on this, they
are most less likely to attend and less likely to
take it seriously because nothing is being spent, nothing is
being committed to, whether it's attention, effort, emotional, physical present.
When we're not investing something, it kind of reduces the
meaning or value in our life. Our nervous system doesn't
register it as important. We show up differently when we've
paid a cost for something we listen differently, we prioritize differently,
(03:57):
because investment creates ownership, and ownership follow through attitude. Your
life directly reflects what you're funding, not what you're fantasizing about.
And sometimes the truth is simple. You might want it,
but just not enough to arrange your whole life for
it yet. And that is not a failure. It's just
good information to have. Honestly, it's just about being real.
And when you ask yourself these questions, write it down
(04:19):
so you can see it in your face. Look at
the hours in your day and see where do I
spend most amount of time? And yeah, of course you
might have a nine to five job that might not
be something you want to change right now, What about
the rest of the hours in the day, how am
I spending it? And so then you'll be able to
see what am I actually prioritizing, What am I showing
the universe and the world that I want in my
life by the investment that I'm making, And so you
(04:41):
might end up realizing that, actually, know what, I've spent
like two hours watching a Netflix show, but I keep
saying I want to work out and that I don't
have time, But actually this little exercise is showing me
that I do have the time, I'm just choosing not
to use it in.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
The way that I want to use it.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
And so sometimes it's really great breaking up your day,
your week, your weekends and really seeing how that time
energy is being spent in a day, and then it
allows you to reallocate that investment into other areas of
your life. The second thing is whether what you're saying
is the same as what you're showing you want. Your
(05:19):
subconscious listens to behavior, not affirmations, and so this is
where honesty really matters, because the body in your nervous
system and you're subconscious, they don't respond to words, they
respond to patterns. You might say you really want love
in your life, but you stay emotionally unavailable. You might
say you want abundance, but you operate from a constant
scarcity mindset. You might say you want confidence, but then
(05:40):
you hide every time you're being seen or avoid being
put into situations where you can show your confidence. So
the question is if someone only look at your actions,
what would they say that you want? If you were
looking at your life from a bird's eye point of view,
you got to watch yourself for a day, What conclusions
would you make of yourself from that day that you
watched What would you think of that person? What would
(06:01):
it look like they want in their life? What would
it look like motivates them, Like, think about all of
these things as you're writing in your journal or you're
writing on paper, and just really think, what does my
life look like from the outside if there was a
little god fairy looking at my life saying, I wonder
what this person wants?
Speaker 2 (06:19):
What can I give to them that they want?
Speaker 1 (06:22):
And purely just through their actions, if they couldn't hear
your intense desires or your intention through your actions, what
would they.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Think that you would want?
Speaker 1 (06:30):
And so that's everything from your calendar, your bank statements,
your boundaries, your habits. They are your real vision board.
That's what you're creating in your life. And so this
isn't about forcing discipline, it's about noticing where your actions
are protecting you. Avoidance is often mistaken for laziness when
it's actually just self preservation. Sometimes we don't show we
want something because we're kind of scared of the responsibility,
(06:52):
the visibility, the disappointment or outgrowing people. If we choose
to let it go or if we choose to change. Well,
speaking to my friend and she really struggles with drinking
and drinking, I guess she would kind of categorize herself
as an alcoholic and or label herself as an alcoholic.
And I remember speaking to I was speaking to her
(07:14):
recently and she said, I've been sober for like thirty
days now, and the scary thing is, I feel like
without alcohol, I don't know where I fit in in
my friend group. I feel like without being an alcoholic,
which is a label that she feels like she's had
for a long time. She's like, if I take that away,
(07:35):
I'm not sure I really know who I am. And
what I've realized is sometimes you hold onto labels because
it gives us this feeling of knowing who we are,
even if it's not a good thing. Being an alcoholic
felt like it was a better label to have than
being someone who has nothing going for them. At Least
then I could blame everything on the alcohol. At Least
(07:56):
then I felt like I knew what I was doing
in my day, Like all these things were figured out
by her classing herself as an alcoholic. But strip that away,
She's like, God, I don't know my friends hang out
with me to drink, I go out, and my motivation
or my mind is always on alcohol. So now without that,
(08:16):
what am I supposed to do? Who am I supposed
to be? And so sometimes we really have to look
at these labels that we've created for ourselves and see
whether they are limiting us in actually taking the actions
towards what we want to do. And so sometimes we
keep saying that we want it, but we don't let
our behaviors catch up, not because we don't care, but
because part of us doesn't feel ready to let go
of the other stuff yet. So you can ask yourself here,
(08:38):
what does my behavior protect me from feeling from experiencing?
And that's a good indication of maybe the parts of
you that you're trying that you need to work on
to let go before you can embrace the life that
you want for yourself. The next thing is self limiting
thoughts and beliefs and words. This is something that can
kind of show up very quietly or actually you might
(08:58):
not even know that it exists inside of you. Right now,
you can invess all the time, all the money or
the energy, but still end up capping your success or
your ability to change with the language that you use,
like that's just not what people like me do, or
I always fail at things, I always mess things up,
things never work out for me. The fact is the
(09:18):
brain listens to repetition, not lodgic, and so words shape
who you become. They shape your identity, and then your
identity shapes your behavior, and your behavior shapes your outcomes.
And the thing is, most of the beliefs that are
blocking you sometimes aren't even yours. They come from childhood conditioning,
past failures that you've overidentified with someone else's fear that's
(09:40):
passed down to you, or a version of you that
needed protection.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Ones.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Beliefs are not truths. They are just agreements, and agreements
can always be renegotiated. And you know what, a certain
amount of delusional optimism is absolutely necessary and actually healthy.
If you only believe what you could logically prove, you
would never start anything new. You wouldn't change careers, you
wouldn't heal all patterns, you wouldn't need relationships or take
risks that don't yet have evidence. Every meaningful shift in
(10:06):
your life required you to believe something before there was proof.
This belief of this could actually work out. This could
actually be really different. Maybe more is possible for me.
It's technically delusional because you act have absolutely no idea,
but that's not a bad thing. That's faith and its
hope and its imagination and its vision. You may not
thinking that about yourself, like one person can only do
(10:28):
so much. So yes, maybe you are limited. Maybe we
are only capable of so much as a singular person.
But the fact is we have God on our side.
We have you plus God, you plus family, you plus
friends that care.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
So you should be able to believe in things.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Beyond what you can fathom or your limited expectations, because hey,
other people may have different plans for you. God may
have different plans for you. And just because you can't
see it yet, and just because you're limited perspective or
you're filtered view isn't able to see it, doesn't mean
it can't exist. I read this quote recently and I
think it said if you could overthink what couldn't happen,
(11:08):
imagine what it would be like if you would overthink
about what is possible?
Speaker 2 (11:13):
And I was like, that's so true.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
What if instead of thinking about all the reasons why
it shouldn't happen, what if you started thinking about what
if it did, Like, what if you had this crazy
idea to actually focus on the possibility of things becoming something,
the possibility of life changing, the possibility of your trajectory
being completely different. Why would you not? Why be stuck
(11:37):
in the possibility of things not happening when you could
have your mind be filled with all these beautiful thoughts
of what it could. The brain actually needs this optimism
to tolerate uncertainty. Without it, fear shots things down before
they even begin. But optimism has to be grounded in action,
otherwise it becomes a fantasy loop that gives you the
emotional reward without the growth, and actually you would and
(12:00):
not feeling happy anyway because you don't end up meeting
the goals or having anything tangible to prove for it.
It will all be living in the mind and not
in your reality. And what I've noticed in my own
life and also in my friends when we talk about
this is sometimes things are not happening because your nervous
system doesn't feel safe having them. So if you're used
(12:21):
to failure, then success can feel unsafe. Love can feel
unsafe if you're used to not having it. Visibility can
feel unsafe if you're not used to having it. Stability
can feel unsafe if it's unfamiliar. The nervous system prioritizes
familiarity over happiness, So if chaos was normal, peace can
feel really boring and difficult. If struggle was rewarded, ease
can feel suspicious. So the body will delay what you
(12:43):
want so much, not because you don't want it, but
because it doesn't trust it yet. So ask yourself, do
you feel safe receiving what you're asking for? Do you
feel safe maintaining what you're asking for? Have you created
the life and the space and the capacity to not
only receive but also hold it and keep it for
a long time? And then I ask yourself, who would
(13:06):
I become if this actually worked out?
Speaker 2 (13:08):
And am I ready for all of that?
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Like, am I truly ready for the work, for the time,
for the effort, for the energy that this is going
to require to receive but then also hold on to
And until safety is built in the body about this
whole equation, and until you've worked through that in your mind,
what may be limiting you is your body knowing that
maybe I'm not ready to handle this right now, and
you have to create the space and the strength to
(13:32):
be able to my friend that I was just talking about,
she really turned a leaf this year, like she has
tried so hard to change your behaviors, stopped herself from
going places really to focus on this new version of
herself that she wanted to be. But sometimes as an
identity lag, when your behavior change is faster than the
idea that you have of yourself. We create our identity
(13:54):
through years and years and years of things that we've experienced.
So just because your behavior changes, sometimes we still expect
ourselves to be the same person. We expect ourself to fail,
we expect ourself to relapse, whatever it is. We end
up creating these expectations of ourself over years, and then
when our behavior changes, we think, oh, well, why do
(14:14):
I not think of myself differently? Why do I still
keep thinking of myself as an old version of me?
And so sometimes things don't happen because your identity hasn't
caught up to your effort. You have an identity lag
when you're doing new behaviors but still seeing yourself through
an old lens. So you might be acting confident, but
you're still identifying as feeling really insecure or you might
be making money, but you're still seeing yourself as being
(14:36):
bad with money. You're showing up, but you're still calling
yourself inconsistent. The brain will always try to pull behavior
back to match your identity. So if you're thinking about
the old you, your old behaviors, you'll start moving towards that.
And I've really experienced.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
That in my life.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Even when I become better at things, I'd be like, oh,
you know, and I made a conscious effort to be
better at them, like even being late for things or
not showing up to places on time. I constantly tell
people that, oh, you know, I don't really I'm not
really good with time, or I'm not really good with
keeping structure in my life.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
And then I'm like, wait, yes I am.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
I've been doing this for so long. I've really worked
so hard to create structure, to be on time, to
be better at these practices, but I keep telling myself
that I'm not because my mind is still holding me
to my old behaviors and my old patterns. And so
you really need to create time to update your identity,
like do a software update in your mind in a
real time, And sometimes that's what's necessary. It's reminding yourself that, oh,
(15:34):
actually I have changed this and my behaviors are changing
like this, which means I'm not that person anymore, even
if I was yesterday, the day before, a month ago,
a year ago.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
And so if you're listening to this.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
And you're thinking, oh my god, I can see so
much of myself in what you've just said, I really
don't want you to feel disheartened by this. This isn't a
list of reasons you're behind or doing something wrong. It's
honestly just a place for you to collect information with
all the those questions, really asking yourself, if things are
not happening in the way I want them to, what
can I shift in my life so they do? What's
(16:07):
blocking me, what's stopping me? What do I need to
let go of to create space to allow it into
my life? Every single area that we talked about, investment,
alignment between words and actions, your beliefs, optimism, emotional safety,
and identity, they're not problems. They're just platforms and information
for you to reflect, experiment, and generally test in your
(16:29):
own life to get closer and closer towards what you
want in your life. So you don't need to overhaul
everything at once. Awareness alone already shifts things. Growth isn't
about getting it perfect. It's honestly just about becoming curious
about where things need to shift. And so instead of
feeling discouraged, I really hope you see this as an
invitation to ask yourself better questions, to try one small
alignment at a time, and to see what happens when
(16:51):
you're in a world and you're out of action, start
pointing in the right direction, and when you start to
believe that you are capable of ever.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
That you want.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
And I think that is the main thing that we
struggle with, believing that you're capable of all the things
that you're desiring in your life. And just know that
you can have that delusional optimism and see where it
takes you this year, just for fun, even if you
don't want to, just try it for fun and see
what happens, because I guarantee you, filling your mind with
positive motivational thoughts are going to make you feel so
(17:21):
much better than filling your mind with self doubt and
the belief that you can't do something. So anyway, I
hope that you have such a wonderful week, and I
really hope that you look into these questions and really
take time to reflect on them and write them, especially
if you're feeling frustrated right now in that area of
your life.
You can't say you want peace but invest your energy
into chaos. You can't say that you want health but
then ignore your body. You can't say that you want
growth but avoid discomfort. And you can't say you want
freedom but then you never say no. That's why, if
you think about it, when things are free, there's actually
been studies on this, they are most less likely to
attend and less likely to take it seriously because nothing
is being spent, nothing is being committed to. I'm rather
(00:22):
WKAH and on my podcast A Really Good Cry, we
embrace the messy and the beautiful, providing a space for raw,
unfiltered conversations that celebrate vulnerability and allow you to tune
in to learn, connect and find comfort together. Hey everyone,
welcome back to this week's episode of A Really Good Cry.
I hope you're healthy and happy, and I hope you're
doing all the things that you want to in life.
(00:43):
But I'm assuming that if you have a click on
this episode, you might be feeling a little bit frustrated
that your life just doesn't look the way you want
it to yet, And if you're finding yourself stuck in
this loop of why is this not happening for me?
Or you might even be blaming other people, blaming your
circumstance or your timing for why your life just isn't
where you want it to be.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
And I totally get it.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Because when things are not moving, the mind ends up
looking for something or someone to point at, whether it's
the family that you came from, the relationship that hurt you,
the job that drained you, or even the version of
yourself that didn't show up when you really needed her to.
But you know what, I really don't believe that people
are unlucky. I think that sometimes we can be misaligned
(01:26):
between what we say we want and what we invest in,
and what we subconsciously believe that we're allowed to have.
So if you're listening to this from a place of
frustration or confusion or resentment, this is not going to
be an episode telling you to try harder or to
think more positively. It's actually just going to be an
invitation for you to look, honestly, without judgment, at where
(01:47):
your life is pointing you and how you might be
able to gently redirect it in the direction that you
want to go. Let's start by talking about this investment.
It's not just money when it comes to investment. It's
your time, it's your energy, what you're funding versus what
you're fantasizing about. And the thing is, every single outcome
has a cost, and it's not always financial, but something
always has to be spent, whether it's time, whether it's money,
(02:10):
whether it's energy, attention, or emotional bandwidth. The uncomfortable truth
is this, if something isn't happening, it might be something
that you're not properly investing in. And that doesn't make
you lazy or unworthy. It just means that your resources
are not currently going to the place that they should be.
They're focused somewhere else. Your life already shows you where
your priorities are, not through what you say, but what
(02:30):
you consistently fund. The brain assigns value through resource allocation,
so whatever you give your time, your money, and your
emotional energy to it becomes what your nervous system believes
is important and safe. That means even procrastination is an investment.
You're investing in familiarity and comfort. One of the mistakes
we make is that we think motivation comes before investment,
(02:51):
but it's usually the opposite. Motivation comes after you've actually
done the investment. Action is what creates clarity, not the
other way around. So if you're waiting, if you're ready,
before you choose to invest your precious time or energy
into something, you're waiting for the wrong signal. So this
is a good place to ask yourself, where does my
time actually go? What do I spend money on without hesitation,
(03:12):
what drains my energy? And what do I consistently avoid?
Because wanting something in theory is not the same as
paying for it in real life. You can't say you
want peace but invest energy into chaos. You can't say
that you want health but then ignore your body. You
can't say that you want growth but avoid discomfort. And
you can't say you want freedom but then you never
say no. That's why, if you think about it, when
(03:33):
things are free, there's actually been studies on this, they
are most less likely to attend and less likely to
take it seriously because nothing is being spent, nothing is
being committed to, whether it's attention, effort, emotional, physical present.
When we're not investing something, it kind of reduces the
meaning or value in our life. Our nervous system doesn't
register it as important. We show up differently when we've
paid a cost for something we listen differently, we prioritize differently,
(03:57):
because investment creates ownership, and ownership follow through attitude. Your
life directly reflects what you're funding, not what you're fantasizing about.
And sometimes the truth is simple. You might want it,
but just not enough to arrange your whole life for
it yet. And that is not a failure. It's just
good information to have. Honestly, it's just about being real.
And when you ask yourself these questions, write it down
(04:19):
so you can see it in your face. Look at
the hours in your day and see where do I
spend most amount of time? And yeah, of course you
might have a nine to five job that might not
be something you want to change right now, What about
the rest of the hours in the day, how am
I spending it? And so then you'll be able to
see what am I actually prioritizing, What am I showing
the universe and the world that I want in my
life by the investment that I'm making, And so you
(04:41):
might end up realizing that, actually, know what, I've spent
like two hours watching a Netflix show, but I keep
saying I want to work out and that I don't
have time, But actually this little exercise is showing me
that I do have the time, I'm just choosing not
to use it in.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
The way that I want to use it.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
And so sometimes it's really great breaking up your day,
your week, your weekends and really seeing how that time
energy is being spent in a day, and then it
allows you to reallocate that investment into other areas of
your life. The second thing is whether what you're saying
is the same as what you're showing you want. Your
(05:19):
subconscious listens to behavior, not affirmations, and so this is
where honesty really matters, because the body in your nervous
system and you're subconscious, they don't respond to words, they
respond to patterns. You might say you really want love
in your life, but you stay emotionally unavailable. You might
say you want abundance, but you operate from a constant
scarcity mindset. You might say you want confidence, but then
(05:40):
you hide every time you're being seen or avoid being
put into situations where you can show your confidence. So
the question is if someone only look at your actions,
what would they say that you want? If you were
looking at your life from a bird's eye point of view,
you got to watch yourself for a day, What conclusions
would you make of yourself from that day that you
watched What would you think of that person? What would
(06:01):
it look like they want in their life? What would
it look like motivates them, Like, think about all of
these things as you're writing in your journal or you're
writing on paper, and just really think, what does my
life look like from the outside if there was a
little god fairy looking at my life saying, I wonder
what this person wants?
Speaker 2 (06:19):
What can I give to them that they want?
Speaker 1 (06:22):
And purely just through their actions, if they couldn't hear
your intense desires or your intention through your actions, what
would they.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Think that you would want?
Speaker 1 (06:30):
And so that's everything from your calendar, your bank statements,
your boundaries, your habits. They are your real vision board.
That's what you're creating in your life. And so this
isn't about forcing discipline, it's about noticing where your actions
are protecting you. Avoidance is often mistaken for laziness when
it's actually just self preservation. Sometimes we don't show we
want something because we're kind of scared of the responsibility,
(06:52):
the visibility, the disappointment or outgrowing people. If we choose
to let it go or if we choose to change. Well,
speaking to my friend and she really struggles with drinking
and drinking, I guess she would kind of categorize herself
as an alcoholic and or label herself as an alcoholic.
And I remember speaking to I was speaking to her
(07:14):
recently and she said, I've been sober for like thirty
days now, and the scary thing is, I feel like
without alcohol, I don't know where I fit in in
my friend group. I feel like without being an alcoholic,
which is a label that she feels like she's had
for a long time. She's like, if I take that away,
(07:35):
I'm not sure I really know who I am. And
what I've realized is sometimes you hold onto labels because
it gives us this feeling of knowing who we are,
even if it's not a good thing. Being an alcoholic
felt like it was a better label to have than
being someone who has nothing going for them. At Least
then I could blame everything on the alcohol. At Least
(07:56):
then I felt like I knew what I was doing
in my day, Like all these things were figured out
by her classing herself as an alcoholic. But strip that away,
She's like, God, I don't know my friends hang out
with me to drink, I go out, and my motivation
or my mind is always on alcohol. So now without that,
(08:16):
what am I supposed to do? Who am I supposed
to be? And so sometimes we really have to look
at these labels that we've created for ourselves and see
whether they are limiting us in actually taking the actions
towards what we want to do. And so sometimes we
keep saying that we want it, but we don't let
our behaviors catch up, not because we don't care, but
because part of us doesn't feel ready to let go
of the other stuff yet. So you can ask yourself here,
(08:38):
what does my behavior protect me from feeling from experiencing?
And that's a good indication of maybe the parts of
you that you're trying that you need to work on
to let go before you can embrace the life that
you want for yourself. The next thing is self limiting
thoughts and beliefs and words. This is something that can
kind of show up very quietly or actually you might
(08:58):
not even know that it exists inside of you. Right now,
you can invess all the time, all the money or
the energy, but still end up capping your success or
your ability to change with the language that you use,
like that's just not what people like me do, or
I always fail at things, I always mess things up,
things never work out for me. The fact is the
(09:18):
brain listens to repetition, not lodgic, and so words shape
who you become. They shape your identity, and then your
identity shapes your behavior, and your behavior shapes your outcomes.
And the thing is, most of the beliefs that are
blocking you sometimes aren't even yours. They come from childhood conditioning,
past failures that you've overidentified with someone else's fear that's
(09:40):
passed down to you, or a version of you that
needed protection.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Ones.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Beliefs are not truths. They are just agreements, and agreements
can always be renegotiated. And you know what, a certain
amount of delusional optimism is absolutely necessary and actually healthy.
If you only believe what you could logically prove, you
would never start anything new. You wouldn't change careers, you
wouldn't heal all patterns, you wouldn't need relationships or take
risks that don't yet have evidence. Every meaningful shift in
(10:06):
your life required you to believe something before there was proof.
This belief of this could actually work out. This could
actually be really different. Maybe more is possible for me.
It's technically delusional because you act have absolutely no idea,
but that's not a bad thing. That's faith and its
hope and its imagination and its vision. You may not
thinking that about yourself, like one person can only do
(10:28):
so much. So yes, maybe you are limited. Maybe we
are only capable of so much as a singular person.
But the fact is we have God on our side.
We have you plus God, you plus family, you plus
friends that care.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
So you should be able to believe in things.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Beyond what you can fathom or your limited expectations, because hey,
other people may have different plans for you. God may
have different plans for you. And just because you can't
see it yet, and just because you're limited perspective or
you're filtered view isn't able to see it, doesn't mean
it can't exist. I read this quote recently and I
think it said if you could overthink what couldn't happen,
(11:08):
imagine what it would be like if you would overthink
about what is possible?
Speaker 2 (11:13):
And I was like, that's so true.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
What if instead of thinking about all the reasons why
it shouldn't happen, what if you started thinking about what
if it did, Like, what if you had this crazy
idea to actually focus on the possibility of things becoming something,
the possibility of life changing, the possibility of your trajectory
being completely different. Why would you not? Why be stuck
(11:37):
in the possibility of things not happening when you could
have your mind be filled with all these beautiful thoughts
of what it could. The brain actually needs this optimism
to tolerate uncertainty. Without it, fear shots things down before
they even begin. But optimism has to be grounded in action,
otherwise it becomes a fantasy loop that gives you the
emotional reward without the growth, and actually you would and
(12:00):
not feeling happy anyway because you don't end up meeting
the goals or having anything tangible to prove for it.
It will all be living in the mind and not
in your reality. And what I've noticed in my own
life and also in my friends when we talk about
this is sometimes things are not happening because your nervous
system doesn't feel safe having them. So if you're used
(12:21):
to failure, then success can feel unsafe. Love can feel
unsafe if you're used to not having it. Visibility can
feel unsafe if you're not used to having it. Stability
can feel unsafe if it's unfamiliar. The nervous system prioritizes
familiarity over happiness, So if chaos was normal, peace can
feel really boring and difficult. If struggle was rewarded, ease
can feel suspicious. So the body will delay what you
(12:43):
want so much, not because you don't want it, but
because it doesn't trust it yet. So ask yourself, do
you feel safe receiving what you're asking for? Do you
feel safe maintaining what you're asking for? Have you created
the life and the space and the capacity to not
only receive but also hold it and keep it for
a long time? And then I ask yourself, who would
(13:06):
I become if this actually worked out?
Speaker 2 (13:08):
And am I ready for all of that?
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Like, am I truly ready for the work, for the time,
for the effort, for the energy that this is going
to require to receive but then also hold on to
And until safety is built in the body about this
whole equation, and until you've worked through that in your mind,
what may be limiting you is your body knowing that
maybe I'm not ready to handle this right now, and
you have to create the space and the strength to
(13:32):
be able to my friend that I was just talking about,
she really turned a leaf this year, like she has
tried so hard to change your behaviors, stopped herself from
going places really to focus on this new version of
herself that she wanted to be. But sometimes as an
identity lag, when your behavior change is faster than the
idea that you have of yourself. We create our identity
(13:54):
through years and years and years of things that we've experienced.
So just because your behavior changes, sometimes we still expect
ourselves to be the same person. We expect ourself to fail,
we expect ourself to relapse, whatever it is. We end
up creating these expectations of ourself over years, and then
when our behavior changes, we think, oh, well, why do
(14:14):
I not think of myself differently? Why do I still
keep thinking of myself as an old version of me?
And so sometimes things don't happen because your identity hasn't
caught up to your effort. You have an identity lag
when you're doing new behaviors but still seeing yourself through
an old lens. So you might be acting confident, but
you're still identifying as feeling really insecure or you might
be making money, but you're still seeing yourself as being
(14:36):
bad with money. You're showing up, but you're still calling
yourself inconsistent. The brain will always try to pull behavior
back to match your identity. So if you're thinking about
the old you, your old behaviors, you'll start moving towards that.
And I've really experienced.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
That in my life.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Even when I become better at things, I'd be like, oh,
you know, and I made a conscious effort to be
better at them, like even being late for things or
not showing up to places on time. I constantly tell
people that, oh, you know, I don't really I'm not
really good with time, or I'm not really good with
keeping structure in my life.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
And then I'm like, wait, yes I am.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
I've been doing this for so long. I've really worked
so hard to create structure, to be on time, to
be better at these practices, but I keep telling myself
that I'm not because my mind is still holding me
to my old behaviors and my old patterns. And so
you really need to create time to update your identity,
like do a software update in your mind in a
real time, And sometimes that's what's necessary. It's reminding yourself that, oh,
(15:34):
actually I have changed this and my behaviors are changing
like this, which means I'm not that person anymore, even
if I was yesterday, the day before, a month ago,
a year ago.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
And so if you're listening to this.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
And you're thinking, oh my god, I can see so
much of myself in what you've just said, I really
don't want you to feel disheartened by this. This isn't a
list of reasons you're behind or doing something wrong. It's
honestly just a place for you to collect information with
all the those questions, really asking yourself, if things are
not happening in the way I want them to, what
can I shift in my life so they do? What's
(16:07):
blocking me, what's stopping me? What do I need to
let go of to create space to allow it into
my life? Every single area that we talked about, investment,
alignment between words and actions, your beliefs, optimism, emotional safety,
and identity, they're not problems. They're just platforms and information
for you to reflect, experiment, and generally test in your
(16:29):
own life to get closer and closer towards what you
want in your life. So you don't need to overhaul
everything at once. Awareness alone already shifts things. Growth isn't
about getting it perfect. It's honestly just about becoming curious
about where things need to shift. And so instead of
feeling discouraged, I really hope you see this as an
invitation to ask yourself better questions, to try one small
alignment at a time, and to see what happens when
(16:51):
you're in a world and you're out of action, start
pointing in the right direction, and when you start to
believe that you are capable of ever.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
That you want.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
And I think that is the main thing that we
struggle with, believing that you're capable of all the things
that you're desiring in your life. And just know that
you can have that delusional optimism and see where it
takes you this year, just for fun, even if you
don't want to, just try it for fun and see
what happens, because I guarantee you, filling your mind with
positive motivational thoughts are going to make you feel so
(17:21):
much better than filling your mind with self doubt and
the belief that you can't do something. So anyway, I
hope that you have such a wonderful week, and I
really hope that you look into these questions and really
take time to reflect on them and write them, especially
if you're feeling frustrated right now in that area of
your life.
Host
Radhi Devlukia
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